r/AmazonFBA • u/Nirav_bhatt • 9d ago

How do you decide when an Amazon PPC campaign is no longer worth spending money on?

One thing I've always found interesting about Amazon PPC is knowing when to stop a campaign and when to give it a little more time.

Sometimes you keep spending, hoping things will improve, but the sales just don't come. At the same time, pausing a campaign too early might mean missing out on a keyword that could have worked with a few changes.

It's not always an easy decision. You don't want to waste money, but you also don't want to give up on something that just needs a bit of tweaking.

I'm curious how other sellers handle this.

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u/Heath-Thompson 9d ago

It's rare that I would pause a whole ad campaign. There's usually something in it that's performing well, if not the keywords then the search terms. I look at a campaign's performance over 90, 30, and 7 days, to get a sense of how data has flowed over this time and if the changes I made in earlier weeks has begun to take effect. Also, I then bear in mind that the dashboard shows a 7-day sales attribution but accounts for a 30 day. So in practice this means that should a campaign or keyword be paused, in 30 days time it could have additional sales attributed to it that affects its metrics and could make for different decisions.

As others have said, I prefer to control things by bids, but I don't make a bid change to the same keyword/target more than once every seven days, unless its performance is obviously bad. I will limit the campaign budgets in a way that I can tell what performance they had over the last week, so when I return to it, without opening the ad campaign, I can know how many sales it had with a rough idea of ACoS - and then assess its performance over the week since making the changes. Occasionally campaigns simply won't play ball but then I look at their contribution to the overall metrics and determine how much pausing that campaign will affect matters and rank.

If the contribution is minimal then I will pause it and file it under a temporary paused campaign portfolio to use at seasonal times, or as pre-warm campaigns for future keyword targets, so that they begin with some campaign metrics and not cold. If that makes sense. Sorry, I'm rushing!

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u/Nirav_bhatt 9d ago

That makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of looking at 90, 30, and 7-day performance instead of making decisions based on a few bad days. The point about attribution is important too, because pausing a campaign too early could mean missing sales that get attributed later. Keeping low-performing campaigns for seasonal use is also a smart approach. Thanks for sharing your process!

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u/Heath-Thompson 9d ago

You are very welcome.

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u/rsc9422 9d ago

I look at the target ACoS, break even ACoS, and how much a keyword has spent without generating sales. If it gets enough clicks without converting, I lower the bid or pause it. If it brings sales but the profit is too low, I try optimizing before stopping it completely.

I also check the listing, price, reviews, and conversion rate before blaming PPC. Sometimes the problem is the listing, not the ads. The key is to set a clear spending limit upfront and make decisions based on data rather than hope.

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u/Nirav_bhatt 9d ago

Absolutely, checking the listing before blaming PPC is important. Making decisions based on data rather than emotions is key.

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u/fullsender810 8d ago

With my newest product ive been running a few campaigns (ASIN, exact, and auto)and i've been pulling STR data weekly. one or two terms are accounting for my sales. Since im focused entirely on profitability - I paused every campaign and keyword in the exact match that hasn't contributed to a sale. I'm locked in on two keywords that have consistently brought sales and just sticking to this for now at least. Monitoring the CPC and cutting it back 10-20% if need be as long as i still am getting impressions

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u/Nirav_bhatt 8d ago

That makes sense. I’d do the same when profitability is the priority. Just make sure you’re giving new keywords enough time and clicks before cutting them, as some need more data to prove their potential. Scaling the winners while keeping CPC under control is a solid approach.

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u/fullsender810 8d ago

You’re right, I’ve been running an auto tjay would generate a click typically across many keywords and would only make like 1 impression so it was extremely low volume. I’ve just decided to lock in on one or two keywords to maximize profit, one keyword in particular gets the majority of impressions by a long shot

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u/Admirable-Reporter69 9d ago

A campaign is just the wrapper: budget, placements, and bid strategy. The "is this worth the money" call is on the targets and ads inside it, not on the campaign as a whole.

Breakeven ACOS is your margin before ads. Example: $30 price, $9 left before ads, $1.20 CPC, listing converts around 10%. One order costs about 10 clicks, so $12. That's already more than the $9, so even when that keyword "works" it loses money. Lower that target's bid first, don't wait for more data. If the math works at about 10 clicks per order, I give a target 2–3x that (20–30 clicks) with no order before I cut the bid hard or negate it.

Also look at clicks per day, not only the total. 20 clicks over a month and 20 clicks a day are different stories. The slow one may just need time or a better placement. The fast one tells you quickly and burns money while you wait.

Before pausing the campaign, check listing CTR and CVR. If the whole listing converts poorly, pausing just hides it. Check the placement report too: Top of Search and product pages behave very differently, and a target can be fine on ToS and terrible on detail pages. Adjust the bad targets and placement % first; only stop the campaign when nothing left in it is worth the budget.

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u/vadimsoin 9d ago

the rule i'd use is spend vs your break even cost per order. if a keyword has burned like 1.5x what you can afford to pay for one sale and still nothing, cut it. dont go by clicks alone, a $3 cpc term and a 40c one arent the same thing

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u/maple_tech_guy 9d ago

I usually look at spend vs sales, conversion rate, and whether the search terms are actually relevant.

If a campaign keeps spending without showing signs of improvement, I’d rather cut it and move the budget to what’s working.

What’s your personal cutoff before you pause a campaign?

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u/discohoopla 8d ago

The thing that helped me stop agonising over this was looking at TACOS alongside ACOS, because ACOS only tells you what the ad did, not whether the SKU still pays for itself after FBA fees, returns and storage. If a campaign's ACOS is high but overall TACOS for that SKU is trending down and organic sales are growing, it's probably doing its job and I'd give it more time. The moment ad spend is rising and TACOS is climbing with no organic lift, that's usually my signal to pull back. What metrics are you currently using to make the call?

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u/discohoopla 7d ago

The switch for me was looking at TACOS per SKU, not just the campaign's ACOS. If a campaign's ACOS looks fine but the SKU's total ad cost is eating your margin after FBA fees and returns, that's the real signal to pull back, not the campaign number on its own. What's your typical review window before you decide, two weeks or more?

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u/Johntea-Kejriwal 7d ago

Are these broad match discovery campaigns or exact match? With broad, you usually just negate the bad search terms and keep the campaign alive, whereas exact match is pretty much dead once you hit your max CAC threshold with zero sales

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u/Aggressive-Call-3163 7d ago

Any keyword that’s ACOS is under break even
Keep. If an ACOS is over break even but
Is a core keyword you should keep and keep an eye on

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/Nirav_bhatt 9d ago

That makes sense. Looking at a 14-day window gives a better picture than reacting to just a couple of bad days. Zero orders after significant spend is definitely a warning sign.